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flint and a rock, stripped birchbark into tiny strips, split a bunch of deadfall pine and birch kindling, +2 degrees Celsius, 5 and a half minutes from start to a fire that would warm me and I could cook on. Did it in aProvincial park about 1 hour drive west of me, out on one of the trails, so after I made myself coffee, I put it back out because it wasn't one their approved fire making places.
trax i have the same problem, i can't make fires at the places i like to go to. the locations i practice at end up being either privately owned land, protected land, nature reserves, conservation areas, or provincial parks....
I guess I could have used one of their fireplaces, but I figured based on WarEagle's challenge it should be an open fire, like if I was back in the bush somewhere. I was lucky that I got those birchbark strips to spark fast and I laid on more bark and had really small kindling ready, then built it up fast when it took off. I love birchbark and dry birch for a tinder and kindling. I usually use wooden matches.
I set my neighbor's house on fire! Does that count? They weren't home. (This is a joke, guys.)
Cool, I leave friday after work and return sunday night, I'll keep track and share my findings on Monday.
Oh my GOD its Friday, leave today at 1700 (that's 5pm duh) until sunday night. Me and the boy :) Can't wait to get off work. Haaaa Ha!!!! Come on 5pm! Hate this stinking city!
have a good time, Beowulf. I'm stuck in urbania this weekend, envious of you already. Next weekend I do believe I'm going to have to put in some bush time or go stark raving mad (stark raving madder?)
anyway, have fun, dude.
all right pups I'm heading to the homestead for the weekend it's like practicing for a shtf only the power is on no phone or TV or computer and limited supplies having a blast.
always be prepared...
Been meaning to try that magnesium block I got some time ago against the saw back on my camp knife. :cool: oops, don't forget the flint.
What a great weekend,
Okay WarEagle69 wanted us to keep track of what we did in the forest so my son and I did, here goes.
Friday we left at 1715 (5:15) and arrived at the farm I do land management for (280 acres) and trek’d it out to until we found our campsite at around 1845 or 1900, by a stream that feeds into the Great Miami River it was 54°, first order of business was getting a fire started. It took 4 minutes to start, we dug a shallow pit and lined it with stones from the river bank, added some dried moss and cattail fluff knocked off some sparks from a flint striker and (poof) we had flames, adding the kindling and then 3 thick logs. We then threw up a diamond shelter and lined the floor with a thick covering of pine needles and it was a mere three feet from the fire, we rolled out the sleeping bags leaving them open just to lay on and set out our kit. After chewing on some jerky and sitting around talking for an hour or so it was pretty dark so we turned in to get a good night’s sleep and wake up early.
Saturday dawned bright and beautiful at 42° and chilly as a witch’s teet, we ate some hunks of deer meat cooked over our fire and drank some mighty cold water but it was refreshing. Just for FVR I don’d my kilt and after we warmed up my son (to my surprise) said teach me to track, boy is that a great feeling. So off we went (dousing the fire of course) and I showed him a fresh deer track. He, as a lot of people do, thought you could tell a Buck from Doe just from one track by how big & deep it is. I showed him how to tell by finding all four tracks and width’s between the front and back tracks thereby ruining his knowledge that we were on a doe trail. We followed them for several hundred yards and then came upon some raccoon tracks by the river bank and off we went. At 1030 it was nearly 60° and we were lying quietly by a fallen log and a sycamore tree watching a field, he was amazed to see a mama fox showing its kits how to hunt; they were actually toying with a field mouse in the process! He was in such awe it made me smile watching him. We tracked the fox for about an hour when he wanted to climb a tree to watch over a small glade with plots of briars and scrub brush and dotted with pine and a huge maple tree, I told him he’d have to sit really still but he was okay with that and up he went, as I sat a ways off watching the field from the ground and my son in his tree a hawk landed about two or three feet from him on a branch and he got a big smile on his face, the hawk stayed put for about 45 seconds to a minute as my son squirmed and it took flight, he climbed down and ran straight to me so excited: “Dad did you see how big that thing was!” And then he kept saying it over and over: “Dad that hawk was huge! Did you see that?!” I just smiled. We collected some fire wood as we went back to our camp and it took only about two minutes to get a nice fire going, my son decided to make his (just made the recipe up right then) deer chunk and onion grass stew, aghhh that was some God awful s**t but I ate it anyway to make him happy (a 15 yr. old boy can woof down a lot of deer meat!)
That night we sat around talking and he told me one his famous ghost stories and I laughed (it was so funny it wasn’t even scary) and we finished off the deer meat chunks, we stayed up pretty late listening to the sounds of the night, he wouldn’t go night tracking because he thought the forest and river were pretty scary in the dark but oh well I was having such a good time with him I didn’t car a bit.
Sunday it was 42° and we ate some bacon I had brought along, nothing taste so good as bacon cooked over an open flame except for maybe something you trap or hunt, the water was cold and tasted so good. I showed him how to make a water filter with a water bottle, rocks and piece of cloth, just enough filter to strain out any muck from the river and he gasped when I drank it but then he tried it too and I laughed at the look on his face. I let him lead on a tracking adventure as he followed a coyotes tracks for just over an hour, I showed him how to tell the head position from the track and he smiled when he proved to me he was learning to track, he was so proud and I was to. I then took him to the stream inlet at the river and we stalked up about twenty yards from a beaver dam and lay there for a couple hours seeing the beaver only twice, but it made him smile from ear to ear to watch the fat little guy chew on a few sticks. He then decided that he wanted a walking stick and we went over by the beaver dam and on the bank he found a stick about 4 feet long that had the bark chewed off by the beaver and he kept it. At noon we were at camp packing up when he just sat down not wanting to leave, I sat down next to him and told him that this weekend was a three day weekend and we’d come back and stay till Monday afternoon. That satisfied him and we headed out after cleaning the campsite and leaving as little trace of our passing as possible, hiking back to the farm house and my car. The land buts up against a park and he kept running off on game trails trying to track as we went, this made the hike out longer but I didn’t care watching my son have so much fun.
Sitting at home cleaning our kit he told me he was surprised and didn’t know how much fun I had when I went into the forest and river lands in our area. I gave him his first knife and he put a hole through his beaver chewed walking stick and attached a rawhide strap, he told my wife (his stepmother) all about our trek and camping and asked if she’d care if we made an entire weekend of it this three day weekend. He was awarded with “As long as your dad and you get your chores done I don’t care.” It worked out even better because she has a pampered chef and candle party Friday and Saturday night.
It was a great weekend, but the best part of it was doing it with my son and watching his face as he learned to start a fire, track and observe, and see nature at its finest, what more could a man ask for (other than 2500 acres in Montana).
Beo,
Beowulf that was great. :)
I really want to get together with a group of you in a hiking and camping environment and ply our skills for weekend, I think this would be great and we'd have a load of fun.
Thanks Corndog-44, hope ya'll have experiences like I do when out in the forests or muntains. :)
Alright folks, I got Friday off (hooya) and with it being a three day weekend (off Monday cause of veteran's day) me and the boy are leaving Friday morning at 6am to hike it out in forest and live it up till Monday at 6pm. Yeeeeeah! Any takers?
Packed last night for this long weekend hiking, camping, and tracking trip with my boy, we leave at 0600 friday morning and return monday at 1800, if things go well and I'm positive they will.
We're only taking the following:
My Knife & honing stone
Hatchet
50 foot of para cord
Large trash bag
2qt. Water skin
wool blanket
7'x7' oil cloth for making diamond shelter
Flint Striker
Bag of Jerky and bag of parched corn, large ziplock bag of Deer Chunks to cook over the open fire
Mmmmm Mmmmm that's some good shi* :D
Army Mess Kit
Tin cup for boiling water & making sasssafras tea
Flintlock and powder horn with all the fixn's in my shot bag
(although seems to me if a feller has his musket and powder he ought to be able to start a fire so I may not take the flint striker)
My son's taking the same and his flintlock is a .32 calibur good for squirrl and rabbit.
We're heading to Miami Whitewater Forest it spans 4,279 acres and butts up against several farms and a lot (2200 acres) of BLM land that we can get lost in.
i 'discovered' a great new patch of wilderness north of whitemouth lake last weekend , started a fire with some good ol wood matches , didnt bring a striking stone so i tried some rocks till i found one that would light the matches, fire was mostly birch started with a fuzzstick. great fire considering the rain the previous day and how windy it was. since you did an itinerary i guess i will to.
my kukuri machette
my buck nighthawk and folding alpha hunter
my leatherman wave SE
about 20 wood matches
roughly 5 feet of wool string
roughly 3 feet of twine
compass
rain poncho which i used to make shelter
small bag of brown sugar (great hunger curer / energy giver)
some home made beef jerky
a bag of various nuts
Hey Beowulf, you get lost...lol when I find you I'm going to tell all our friends how you "the big ranger team leader" got lost in the forests and I had to save you... lol just joking bro, call me when you get back... and how old is your son now?
if he's a ranger then he can pass the pine needle test..
Yeah, he's pretty damn good in the woods, learned alot from his dad but won't talk about as something happened between them, then ranger school and jungle school just added to his skills, I just gotta get him outta the damn city and being a cop.
What is the big deal I can go P... on a rock here and start a fire .. LOL OK waybe not I'm in..